|
on MENA - Middle East and North Africa |
| By: | Karshenas, M.; Pesaran, M. H.; Smith, R. P. |
| Abstract: | The current restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz imposes significant costs on the global economy. Rather than attempting to reverse this situation through military means, a more viable approach may be to institutionalize the emerging arrangement in which Iran, in coordination with littoral states on the opposite shore, guarantees safe transit while charging a toll for service provision. Such an arrangement would resemble the system governing passage through the Turkish Straits under the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits. The likely toll would be small relative to the value of goods in transit or the immense costs associated with forcibly reopening the Strait. Moreover, a stable revenue stream could create incentives for Iran to maximize shipping throughput rather than restrict it. Attempting to open the Strait by military means and ensuring that the flow is sustained in the future, and not disrupted again, would require the U.S. to succeed in installing a more compliant government in Iran. It is very unlikely that the US could use naval and air power to deter or depose the present regime, defend ships transiting the Strait, or destroy all the Iranian munitions threatening shipping. The monetary cost of regime change in Iran is likely to be many times the $3-5 trillion estimate of the cost of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, compared to the total U.S. military budget of $962 billion for 2025. Iran has about three times the area and more than three times the population of Iraq in 2003. Regime change may not be feasible. Similar amounts were pent by the U.S. in Afghanistan and still failed to sustain a compliant regime. |
| Keywords: | Shipping, Transit Costs, Global Supply Chains |
| JEL: | F68 G22 |
| Date: | 2026–04–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2632 |
| By: | Hinh T. Dinh |
| Abstract: | This paper is the second in a series examining services-led development and global value chain (GVC) integration in the Global South. It applies a three-category analytical framework covering knowledge services (ICT and professional business services), enabling services (transport, logistics, and finance), and local services (retail, hospitality, health, and personal services), to OECD Trade in Value Added indicators. The paper thus provides a structural assessment of Morocco's services sector over 2012–2022, benchmarked against the EU15. Morocco emerges as the most structurally advanced of the three North African economies examined in this series. Its computer programming and IT services sub-sector has achieved a degree of international market orientation that is the highest in the regional sample and broadly comparable to EU15 levels. This reflects the Casablanca nearshore ecosystem's deep integration with European client markets. Professional and technical services show the most dynamic trajectory in the regional dataset; forward integration into international markets rose steadily and substantially over the decade. The administrative and support services sector stands out for combining strong domestic supply chain embedding with growing international orientation simultaneously, a dual character that makes it the most structurally versatile knowledge services sub-sector in the study. Enabling services, anchored by the Tanger Med port complex, exhibit authentic GVC integration through deep assembly-and-re-export operations, with import content growing markedly over time. The paper further shows that Morocco's most competitive knowledge services sub-sectors—computer programming, professional services, and administrative services—have reached or exceeded EU15 levels of bilateral GVC embeddedness measured by both input sourcing and upstream positioning, making Morocco the only economy in the North African dataset that has crossed this threshold. The central conclusion is that Morocco's structural challenge is scale rather than quality. Morocco’s leading knowledge services sub-sectors are internationally competitive but collectively too small to generate the spillovers and employment effects that self-reinforcing convergence requires. The big-push logic of this series' Framework Paper applies directly: Morocco possesses the quality foundations of a knowledge economy but has not yet reached the critical mass at which knowledge services spillovers become self-sustaining. The evidence supports a structural policy agenda of deliberate scaling of IT and professional services, combined with containment of a rising public administration share, which risks crowding out productive investment. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:rp04_26 |
| By: | Abboud, Ali (American University of Beirut); Bazzi, Samuel (University of California San Diego); Canaan, Serena (Simon Fraser University); Deeb, Antoine (World Bank); Mouganie, Pierre (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how authority figures in higher education shape gender norms over the long run. We exploit the random assignment of first-year students to faculty advisors at an elite university in the Middle East, combining administrative records with an alumni survey measuring gender attitudes up to 24 years later. Women assigned to female advisors adopt more egalitarian views about politics and work, while men become more conservative. Effects are strongest among religious students and in male-dominated STEM fields, where female authority is especially counter-stereotypical, and may persist through reinforcement: women assigned to female advisors later sort toward female instructors and more gender-themed courses. Our results are not driven by generic exposure to successful women—randomized exposure to high-achieving female peers has little effect, while the largest impacts come from senior and high-value-added female advisors. A simple framework combining belief updating and identity-based status threat explains these patterns. Our findings reveal a progress paradox whereby gains in female representation in elite authority expand opportunities for women while intensifying backlash among men, deepening gender polarization. |
| Keywords: | gender norms, higher education, polarization, role models, backlash, religion |
| JEL: | I23 J16 J24 P00 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18611 |
| By: | Hajar Kabbach; Otaviano Canuto |
| Abstract: | TClosing Morocco's gender employment gap could increase GDP per capita by 40-50 percent; yet female labor force participation stands at just 19 percent—among the lowest in the world and still declining. This policy paper argues that investing in the care economy is not merely a social expenditure, but a productive economic strategy with measurable returns. Drawing on international evidence from Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, and India, the brief demonstrates that well-designed care systems—spanning childcare, eldercare, and domestic work—can substantially increase women's labor force participation, generate employment across sectors, improve human capital outcomes, and expand the fiscal base through workforce formalization. The paper identifies four operational pillars for reform: building a robust measurement infrastructure, including a satellite account for unpaid care work; expanding affordable, high-quality childcare, particularly for children under three; professionalizing and formalizing the care workforce; and strengthening governance through a centralized coordination body. Morocco's ongoing reform agenda—anchored in the New Development Model and the Jobs Roadmap—offers a timely opportunity to embed these investments within national policy. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pp12_26 |
| By: | Espino, Braulio |
| Abstract: | Why do comparable military defections and elite divisions sometimes produce regime collapse while identical conditions fail elsewhere? Conventional explanations falter by assuming uniform effects rather than context-dependent configurations. This article argues that breakdown arises from conjunctural combinations, transcending variable-centred approaches via Qualitative Comparative Analysis of eleven high-intensity protest cases from 2010-2014. Military insubordination, elite fragmentation, and the absence of external support prove necessary and jointly sufficient for collapse. Two equifinal pathways emerge: endogenous breakdown through domestic fragmentation without external support; and externally assisted collapse fuelled by foreign intervention. Structural factor such as youth unemployment and institutional weakness, however, do not achieve conventional necessity thresholds, acting as permissive enablers of mobilisation rather than determinants of outcomes. This set-theoretic test advances configurational methods, explaining divergent trajectories in similar cases while challenging monocausal and linear approaches. |
| Date: | 2026–05–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5shp8_v1 |
| By: | Abu Shaban, Ahmed; Mason, Michael |
| Abstract: | This photo essay is an output of a collaboration project between the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and AlAzhar University – Gaza, titled ‘Coping with Food Insecurity in Gaza: The Role of Community-based Initiatives’. This research project investigates the conditions under which mutual aid is effective in delivering food, including for particularly vulnerable groups. The project is part of the Middle East Centre Palestine Programme; it was managed by the LSE Middle East Centre and financed by the LSE Urgency Fund (2024– 25). The views expressed are solely those of the contributors. The field research conducted in Gaza encompassed administration of a crisis coping questionnaire, interviews with organisers and users of community kitchens, and participant observation as local researchers took part in mutual food aid activities involving their families and communities. As approved by the LSE Research Ethics Committee, data collection followed strict ‘safetyfirst’ guidance and research integrity protocols. The primary data in this photo essay is mainly sourced from the field journals of the local Gaza researchers, representing their lived experience of food availability – particularly flour and bread – during 2024 and 2025. The researchers’ entries are not always in Modern Standard Arabic (الفصحى); they are verbatim to maintain their authentic expression. Photos taken by researchers have been credited. The Arabic title of the photo essay, lukmat al’aysh (لقمة العيش ), translates literally as ‘a bite of bread’, but can also mean ‘livelihood’ or ‘bread and butter’. |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2026–04–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138117 |
| By: | Sonkurt Sen |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the intergenerational effects of maternal exposure to terrorism on early childhood skill development. Using data from the 2018 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey linked to detailed records of terrorist incidents, I measure mothers’ exposure to conflict-related fatalities in their birth cities during early schooling years. I employ a two-stage difference-in-differences estimator that exploits spatial and cohort-level variation in exposure. The results show that maternal exposure to terrorism significantly reduces children’s socio-emotional and physical development, while having no detectable effects on literacy and numeracy. Further analysis suggests that these effects operate through reduced parental investments, lower maternal education andlowerwealth. Severalrobustnesschecks confirm the findings. |
| Keywords: | Skills Development, Terrorism, Human Capital, Early Childhood |
| JEL: | D74 H56 I25 J13 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_751 |